Your Right to Know

Ohio’s Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law might be poorly written but not bad
enough to be unenforceable.

The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday upheld the 10-year mandatory sentence for those convicted of
violating the RICO statute during the commission of a first-degree felony.

In a 4-3 ruling, the court reversed a decision by the 9th District Court of Appeals and
reinstated a 10-year prison sentence imposed against David Willan, of Akron, who was convicted of
68 separate counts, including a violation of the RICO statute and five first-degree felonies
stemming from securities fraud.

Writing for the court’s majority, Justice Judith L. French rejected the appellate court’s
conclusion that the state statute was vague and the 10-year sentence should be tossed out.

“We acknowledge that (the statute) is, like most sentencing statutes, complex, but ‘the mere
possibility of clearer phrasing’ will not defeat the most natural reading of the statute ... nor
must the General Assembly draft a law with ‘scientific precision’ before we will enforce it,”
French wrote.

In separate dissenting opinions, Justices Judith Lanzinger and Paul Pfeifer both said the state
law was a massive run-on sentence and difficult to comprehend.

Lanzinger noted that the entire statute is “a single sentence, consisting of 307 words and
containing separate references to over 20 other criminal statutes ... the statutory language is
hardly plain.”

Pfeifer, a former state senator, wrote that the law, “by cramming so many words about sentencing
into one sentence, sentences itself to uselessness.”

In separate legal news, a watchdog panel awarded $102,450 to five clients of a former Franklin
County attorney.

An arm of the Ohio Supreme Court, the Board of Commissioners of the Clients’ Security Fund of
Ohio, found the five were entitled to reimbursement from attorney Eric J. Strawser because he
failed to provide services his clients had paid for.

Strawser, formerly of Orient, resigned from the practice of law in October 2011 while facing
discipline for multiple allegations of professional misconduct. He pleaded guilty last year to two
counts of felony theft and is serving a four-year prison sentence.

Other clients of Strawser’s have previously been awarded more than $300,000.

The board was created in 1985 by the court to reimburse victims of attorney theft, embezzlement
or misappropriation. The fund is supported by attorney registration fees.